The risky business of a foreign correspondent
Nightmares of abduction and confinement disrupted my sleep the night before I left for Afghanistan. It was Dec. 1, 1991, and I was working on a freelance piece for The Los Angeles Times Magazine, flying into Kabul from Uzbekistan on a Soviet military transport on my birthday. My best friends were foreign corresponding colleagues and together we made a pact over shots of vodka that if anything happened to us in the field, we would immediately mobilize media and the U.S. government to aid and rescue us. (Read more)